A look at what future rising seas could mean for some of America's favoriate places

The Associated Press

Published Sunday, September 23, 2007

How would some of the United States best known cities look if seas rise by slightly more than three feet? Its a disturbing picture.

The projections are based on coastal maps created by scientists at the University of Arizona, who relied on data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Many scientists say sea rise of one meter is likely to happen within 100 years. Here is a look at what that might do:

BOSTON

How would some of the United States' best known cities look if seas rise by slightly more than three feet? It's a disturbing picture.

The projections are based on coastal maps created by scientists at the University of Arizona, who relied on data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Many scientists say sea rise of one meter is likely to happen within 100 years. Here is a look at what that might do:

NEW YORK

At the southern tip of Manhattan, sea water would inundate Battery Park City, now home to 9,000 people. Waves would lap near the base of the new Freedom Tower. Beachfront homes from the blue collar Rockaways to the mansions of the Hamptons, could be swamped by advancing surf. Much of Hoboken, N.J. Frank Sinatras hometown would become an island.

New Yorkers seeking a change of scene would find it tougher to get out of town, since both runways at LaGuardia Airport would be partly underwater. But all that would pale compared to what would happen during a bad storm. If giant storm walls were built across key waterways, that might protect parts of the city, but that doesnt help anyone outside the gates, said Malcolm Bowman, who leads a storm surge research group at Stony Brook University.

This is no joke, he added. With a three-foot headstart, even a medium-sized storm surge could wipe out tens of thousands of homes in low-lying parts of Brooklyn and Long Island.:

MIAMI

You can kiss goodbye the things that make South Florida read like an Elmore Leonard novel: the glitz of South Beach, the gator-infested Everglades, and some of the bustling terminals of Miami International Airport.

Many of the beachside places where tourists flock and the rich and famous luxuriate would be under water. Spits of land would be left in fashionable South Beach and celebrity-studded Fisher Island.

While the booming downtown would be mostly spared, inland areas near the airport and out to the low-lying Everglades would be submerged. Miami would resemble a cookie nibbled on from the south and east.

Stephen Sawitz, whose family has run Joes Stone Crab in Miami Beach for four generations surviving hurricanes and floods looks at the maps and sees little hope for his restaurant or his home several decades from now: Im going to be thinking about it now for the rest of my life. And the generations after me, Im going to be telling them about it.

NEW ORLEANS

If the levees break again and the nation gives up the fight to save the lowest parts of New Orleans, the Big Easy would be reduced to a sliver of land along the Mississippi River, leaving the French Quarter and the oldest neighborhoods as the only places on dry ground.

Gone would be the Dixie brewery, museums, countless neighborhood restaurants and bars, Louis Armstrong landmarks and Congo Square, the spot where jazz got its birth. Water would even cover the first few blocks of Bourbon Street. A trip to the tomb of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau would require a boat, or at least rubber hip boots. Maybe the Fair Grounds Race Course, the nations third-oldest track, could obtain a second lease on life as an open-air aquarium.

GALVESTON, Texas

Galveston Island has been the home base for pirate Jean Lafitte and mobsters in its colorful past. Now it offers nothing more terrifying than beachgoers looking to escape Houstons brutal summers. It survived the 1900 hurricane, which killed 6,000 people and stands as the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. But a sea level rise of three feet could bring a new form of fear to this sturdy little beach city of 57,000.

Water would cut Galveston off from the Texas mainland by submerging Interstate 45, the only direct route, and it would cover large portions of the bay side. In addition to flooding tourist shops and restaurants, water also would make a mess of the University of Texas Medical Branch, future home of a U.S. lab for some of the worlds most dangerous germs. At the historic Hotel Galvez, built in 1911 as proof of the citys resilience, staffer Renee Adami said the city has an inherent strength that would help it survive.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY

Rising waters would submerge some of the best of San Francisco Bay: Fishermans Wharf, baseball, software companies, even parts of the wine country.

The southern bay, Silicon Valley and the fertile San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta would be hardest-hit. Also under water would be San Franciscos famed Embarcadero waterfront, runways at both the San Francisco and Oakland airports, and even the Oakland As planned new stadium in Fremont.

The Redwood Shores campus of business software maker Oracle Inc., which now has an ornamental pond, would be sitting in one.